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MST Informas

In this special bulletin we include an article from researcher Juliano de Carvalho Filho, a professor from the faculty of Economics and Business Administration at the University of Sao Paolo (USP), who has worked on the national program for agrarian reform and is a member of the Brazilian Association for Agrarian Reform (ABRA).

After carrying out analysis into how successive governments have acted in divulging the number of landless workers housed on their own land, the proffessor ratifies the position of the MST in relation to Lula's government: that statistics released are not representative of reality and do not suggest an effective process of agrarian reform.

In order to win a lot of victories in the coming year, the MST is planning struggles and mobilizations. They are forms of organized social pressure where we want to have fewer fast food restaurants on every corner and more libraries and bookstores; access to land to produce healthy and cheap food, jobs and a decent income for all families, quality free education, access to information, the preservation of popular culture and strengthening of health. For this to happen, it will be necessary to discuss in all possible spaces the building of an anti-neoliberal, anti-imperialist, popular, and national project. The new model can only be made viable starting with grass-roots discussions that will gather energy, forces, and consensus around the ideas. No doubt it will be necessary for the mass movement to be strengthened in order to alter the current correlation of adverse forces. The struggle of the MST and the life of those who participate in it are dedicated to seeing this dream become reality in Brazil.

The Congressional Committee of Inquiry on Land Issues (CPMI) concluded its activities, approving a lateral report that criminalizes the MST’s activities and impedes progress for agrarian reform. The document is so reactionary that it ends up recommending the approval of two bills that classify the behavior of those who occupy land in order to pressure the government to make agrarian reform as heinous and a terrorist act.

The Landless Workers’ Movement (MST), by way of this message, expresses its indignation toward the majority decision of the Congressional Committee of Inquiry on Land Issues (CPMI) who, fulfilling the criminal and hateful objectives of the UDR (Rural Democratic Union) and its allies, acted against the stated purpose of the CPMI. The CPMI was established to diagnose Brazil’s land structure and the processes of Agrarian and Urban Reforms and to propose solutions to the problems identified.

In the last few days, the Congressional Committee of Inquiry on Land Issues was center stage on the national scene. There are two antagonistic sides in this confusion of information: on one side are the defenders of the implementation of Land Reform as a mechanism for national development. On the opposite side, the Congressmen tied to the Rural Democratic Union (UDR), agribusiness, and rural violence.

Around 9:30am on November 16th, landless workers Vanderlei Macena Cruz and Mauro Gomes Duarte, residents of Accampamento Rensacer (The Encampment Rebirth), were assassinated while riding their motorcycle to work. According to information released by the Pastoral Land Commission (CPT), they were found dead on a road that divides lands falsely claimed by local landowners Silmar Kessler and Sebastião Neves de Almeida, also known as Chapéu Preto.

This Special Edition of the ‘MST Informa’ has been written to share an historical event in these 505 years of Brazil’s existence: a gathering, during the 25th and 28th of October, of representatives from over 40 Brazilian social movements. Members of urban and rural movements, the National Confederation of Brazilian Bishops, and other organizations, all gathered for the same reason: to organize the poor to achieve real, structural, changes. We could not delay in sharing this unprecedented event: the Popular Assembly - Mobilization for a New Brazil.

On October 23, Brazilian society will be called upon to decide if we should prohibit arms sales. The MST and the social movements that belong to Via Campesina Brasil said a long time ago that we are definitely in favor of outlawing sales of arms and weapons.

We are closely following the current hunger strike against the transposition of the São Francisco River. In this edition, we would like to give our solidarity to Bishop Flavio Cappio for his courageous decision to risk his own life in a final attempt to save the life of the river. He is prepared to pay the ultimate consequence for his decision, as it came after a long period of careful thought and reflection. Will President Lula allow something like this to leave a mark upon his government? We sincerely hope that his conscience is touched by these events and that he reverses his decision.

The nation of Brazil is living through a serious crisis and is in grave danger. The danger that threatens our nation is the result of the implementation of neoliberal policies that favor only national and international finance capital and the huge corporations that are dedicated to exports. This policy worsens poverty, social inequality, and misery.